Nick
Catalano is a TV writer/producer and Professor of Literature
and Music at Pace University. He reviews books and music
for several journals and is the author of Clifford
Brown: The Life and Art of the Legendary Jazz Trumpeter,
New
York Nights: Performing, Producing and Writing in Gotham
, A
New Yorker at Sea,, Tales
of a Hamptons Sailor and his most recent book,
Scribble
from the Apple. For Nick's reviews, visit his
website: www.nickcatalano.net.
A short while
ago a dear friend and great actress - Frances Sternhagen
- passed away at age 93. The last time I saw her in her
dressing room after a Broadway play we again took up a discussion
of Paddy Chayefsky which had begun when Frances had starred
years earlier in his film The Hospital. I had reviewed
the film and raved that it had all of the 
elements
of great tragedy (It had garnered an Oscar for Chayefsky,
the only screenwriter to win three unshared Academy awards).
I had noted that one of its structural hallmarks was the
ingenious weaving of comic elements in this tragic satire
of modern city hospitals. The film, I felt, had achieved
true greatness and taken its place among tragic dramas together
with his other Oscar winners Marty and Network.
The list of
great tragedies that contain comedy is a long one. It was
Thomas De Quincy’s essay, “On the Knocking at
the Gate in Macbeth,” which presciently showed that
such elements were vital in order for a play to gain universality
and subsequent preeminence. Actually, master dramatists
from Aristophanes onwards had long recognized the value
of inserting comedy in order to elevate their serious work.
Lysistrata, one of history’s outstanding
anti-war plays, contains absolutely hysterical scenes of
women refusing to give their husband’s any sex until
they ended the Peloponnesian war. Shakespeare’s drunken
Porter in Macbeth enables us to realize that while
murder is being committed in one room of a castle, in another
room there is chucklesome drunkenness going on. In Hamlet
the protagonist conducts a comic interlude for the production
of a play which will help him gain revenge on his murderous
uncle.
In serious
video and film projects writers have long recognized the
need to insert comic relief into dialogue and action sequences
and Chayefsky’s best writing achieves greatness, in
part, because of his genius in executing comic elements
to support the tragedy. In The Hospital he creates
a bitter satire of all the bureaucratic, political, medical
and social interactions that conspire to produce accidental
death in an institution designed to preserve life. Frances
Sternhagen plays the part of a hopelessly bureaucratic administrator
whose prolixity reflects the endless paperwork that can
actually be a cause of further illness and even death in
some patients. Corrupt physicians, overworked administrators,
bullied nurses and neighbourhood protesters are all presented
in bitter satire which is rendered more powerful by Chayefsky’s
brilliant comic interludes and the clownish behaviour of
some key characters.
In The
Americanization of Emily, Chayefsky cleverly satirizes
the insidiousness of inter-service rivalry in the American
military which, of course, results in more casualties in
battle. He attacks the omnipresent egoism of senior officers,
the need to glorify all war efforts, and the fatuous sense
of pride among people who have lost relatives in combat.
He shows how these eternal human flaws are the real causes
of all war. Much of the satiric power in the film is achieved
by the lead character, a naval officer played by James Garner,
who is a master “dog robber.” His job is to
provide the best food, amenities and women available for
the senior military officers who order men killed in battles
that serve only to publicize their ability. The ingenious
comic behaviour of the dog robber and his cohorts reinforces
the horrific absurdity of war and underscores its inevitability
because of everyone’s need to glorify.
The struggle
to extract objective truth from media sources has become
a major issue everywhere and television news programming
is a major target in the controversy. In Network,
produced in 1976, one critic wrote that Chayefsky “presaged
the advent of reality television by twenty years.”
And it is perhaps the viewing of this film by younger audiences
unacquainted with Paddy Chayefsky that will stimulate new
inquiry into his genius. The principal theme of the film
is to show the insane length that TV moguls will go to in
order to achieve better ratings. The lead character, played
by Faye Dunaway, convinces executives that political violence
and other inhuman behaviour should constitute the essence
of their programming. Thus, a lead anchorman advertising
his own suicide intent, revolutionary racism and absurd
fortune telling wind up being the prime time shows on her
network. Early TV prestige exemplified by the Walter Cronkites
of media journalism is abandoned in favour of gossipy false
news, libelous accusations, and the kind of lying and hyperbole
that we have become used to in present day programming.
Throughout,
Chayefsky inserts his usual sardonic dialogue, replete with
comic metaphors and interludes that render the “madness”
of the media. That word is used often in the film.
Chayefsky’s
writing and directing in early TV drama (his enormous success
on the Philco Playhouse is legendary) and motion pictures
was constantly met with opposition from producers, film
executives and studio heads. Mostly, they opposed the intellectualism
of his dialogue and the complexity of the characters and
their problems. His aesthetic standards and production values
were invariably challenged; and only because of an aggressive
and unyielding personality was he able to get his way.
Paddy Chayefsky
was an idealistic intellectual, a dedicated opponent of
McCarthyism and a staunch supporter of Israel as it attained
nationhood. He championed dozens of struggles that screenwriters
have always had with the money people in film production.
He opposed the Vietnam war, and fought anti-Semitism all
his life.
A little known
work that Chayefsky created was the film The Goddess
based on the life and struggle of Marilyn Monroe. According
to his biographer Shaun Considine, Chayefsky “captured
her longing and despair” accurately. I became interested
in this project because as a teen age jazz musician playing
a gig in The Hamptons I had met her when she came up to
the bandstand. I found her extremely knowledgeable about
the music, hugely supportive of jazz and its struggles,
and in other short conversations, modest, and warm. In the
tons of literature written about this Hollywood icon, she
is constantly portrayed as a fickle, selfish and indolent
person. Paddy Chayefsky was the only writer who understood
the difficulties caused by depraved producers and image
makers who focused on sex and couldn’t care less about
her as a studied actress.
Chayefsky’s
brilliant talent and combative personality caused him to
have a troubled life. He died in 1981 at age 58 and his
incomparable film work has not received anywhere near the
attention it deserves. All of the films noted above are
available on all the streaming sites (Turner Classic Movies
shows them quite often) and await long overdue new critical
examination.
COMMENTS
susieparis17@gmail.com
Stunning, erudite article from a master about a master.
Comforting to be in the hands of an expert who knows his
classics! And gives a great writer his due. Thank you Professor
Catalano; I learned about Chayefsky!
